The voices came through muddled, like trying to listen to the conversations of underwater people. She was even wet, but that was just a thin layer of sweat that had encased her body.

“… I have no idea! She was fine before. I mean, she has this condition, I have a prescription for her medication, but I’ve never seen her like this.”

“Has she been without her medication during your trip here?”

“I only had some of the basic remedies on my shuttle…”

“Holy *God*, look at that list. Enough to straighten out half an asylum.”

“… but her brother said—”

“Her brother?”

“He’s a doctor. *Her* doctor.”

Too busy swimming, River ignored the voices. She wasn’t swimming in water, though. She was swimming through her own head. It was OK to ignore the voices. They weren’t relevant—River was even pretty sure that none of it had happened yet. There was a lot leading up to this.

Before coming here, she first had to sneak off the ship. Run away from home. It was the second time she would do that. But the first time she had run away she had run to school, and her parents had let her. The second time, she would be running to stay *away* from school, and the only parents she had left were her brother and a grumpy space captain.

Parents were like a reverse version of the torment of Tantalus. The less you saw of them, the more you wanted them. It wasn’t their fault, though. Not always. Sometimes you just had bad thoughts that made it better to be away from them. But better for who?

When the voices returned, they were shrill, and they knocked River’s thoughts all atumble. It wasn’t so bad, though. Happened all the time, and usually, she did it herself, by accident. One of the voices she knew—it was telling her to hold on, that she would feel better soon.

She tried to hold on to the voice, because she remembered that she liked it, but she got distracted when she heard another voice years and years—a lifetime—earlier. That voice, she knew she liked even better. She couldn’t remember it well enough to make out what was saying at first